After Tamerlane

Darwin's book will push scholars to think of global history

How good it is to see the return of "large history", that is, history that ranges across continents and centuries. The post-1960s drift was towards micro-histories, many of those products being vivid and exciting, although by their very subject books on medieval millers or nuns missed a grander, comparative picture of what was going on across the world at that time. In the past 15 or so years, large history has returned, and After Tamerlane is a fine case in point.

Its author, John Darwin, has contributed much valuable scholarship to the pattern and processes of European decolonisation - his previous works have included The End of the British Empire and Britain, Egypt and the Middle East. With this book, however, he takes the reader on a far larger and longer journey, offering an elegant and brilliant survey of the great empires of the world since the early 15th century. Concentrating